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Corbyn and McDonnell have opted for an old-style socialist agenda that would bring economic ruin to Britain

Gerald Kaufman, the one time Labour MP, famously described his party’s 1983 election manifesto as “the longest suicide note in history”. There is no need for such epithets this time around, since the party has already effectively committed suicide by choosing an unelectable leader. The latest manifesto is, I suppose, a kind of doubling down exercise, just to make absolutely sure of electoral disaster on June 8.

From an economic perspective, the manifesto is a mixture of hot air, right-on nonsense, wild, uncosted spending commitments, wishful thinking, tax threats against the better off and the business community, the outright dangerous, and the legally impossible.